W E B Griffin - Badge of Honor 01 - Men In Blue

by Men In Blue(lit)

  He walked Wohl twenty feet down the sidewalk.

  "Shoot," he said. "I gotta get inside. That's Dutch's sister-in-law. Ex-sister-in-law. And his nephew."

  "The commissioner said if I saw you before he did, I should tell you what's going on."

  "He here?"

  "Yes, sir," Wohl said. "There was an eyewitness, Chief, Miss Louise Dutton, of Channel Nine."

  "The blonde?" Coughlin asked.

  "Right," Wohl said. "She was with Captain Moffitt at the time of the shooting," he added, evenly.

  "Doing what?"

  "I don't know, sir," Wohl said.

  "You don't know?" Coughlin asked, on the edge of sarcasm.

  "She said that she was meeting him to get his reaction to people calling the Highway Patrol 'Carlucci's Commandos,' " Wohl said. "She was very upset, sir, when I got there. She was kneeling over Captain Moffitt, weeping."

  "Where is she?" Coughlin asked.

  "She went from the diner to Channel Nine-"

  "They didn't take her to the Roundhouse?" Coughlin interrupted. "Who let her go?"

  "The commissioner... I was a couple of blocks from the Waikiki Diner, and responded to the call, and I was the first supervisor on the scene, and I called him. The commissioner said I should do what had to be done. I didn't think sending her to the Roundhouse was the thing to do. So I borrowed two uniforms from the Second District, and sent them with her. I told them to stay with her, to see that she got home safely. Homicide will send somebody to talk to her at her apartment."

  Coughlin grunted. "McGovern say anything to her?" he asked.

  "I don't think Mac saw the situation as I did, Chief."

  "Probably just as well," Coughlin said. "Mac is not too big on tact. Is there anything I should be doing?"

  "I don't think so, sir. The commissioner knows how close you were to Dutch..."

  "Is there... is this going to develop into something awkward, Peter?"

  "I hope not," Wohl said. "I don't think so."

  "Jesus H. Christ," Coughlin said. "This is going to be tough enough on Jeannie without it being all over the papers and on the TV that Dutch was fooling around with some bimbo..."

  "I think we can keep that from happening, Chief," Wohl said; and then surprised himself by adding, "She's not a bimbo. I like her. And she seems to understand the situation."

  Coughlin looked at him with his eyebrows raised.

  "The commissioner asked me to make sure nothing awkward develops, Chief," Wohl said. "To find out for sure what Captain Moffitt's relationship with Miss Dutton was..."

  "I went through the academy with Dutch's brother," Coughlin interrupted. "Dutch was then, what, sixteen, seventeen, and he was screwing his way through the cheerleaders at Northeast High. He never, as long as I knew him, gave his pecker a rest. I've got a damned good idea what his relationship with Miss-whatsername?-was."

  "Dutton, Chief," Wohl furnished, and then added: "We don't know that, Chief."

  "You want to give me odds, Peter?" Coughlin asked.

  Mrs. Patricia Payne and Matthew Payne walked up to them.

  "Patty, do you know Inspector Wohl?" Coughlin asked.

  "No, I don't think so," Patricia Payne said, and offered her hand. "This is my son Matt, Inspector. Dutch's nephew.''

  "I'm very sorry about this, Mrs. Payne," Wohl said. "Dutch and I were old friends." He offered his hand to Matt Payne.

  "Inspector Wohl, did he say?" Matt asked.

  "Staff Inspector Wohl," Coughlin furnished, understanding Matt's surprise that Wohl, who didn't look much older than Matt, held such a high rank. "He's a very good cop, Matt. He went up very quickly; the brass found out that when they gave him a difficult job, they could count on him to handle it."

  There's something behind that remark, Patricia Payne thought. I wonder what?

  "It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Payne, Matt," Wohl said. "I just regret the circumstances. I've got to get back on the job."

  Chief Inspector Coughlin nodded, and then turned and took Mrs. Patricia Payne's arm and led her to Dutch Moffitt's front door.

  FIVE

  With some difficulty, Staff Inspector Peter Wohl extricated his car from the cars jammed together on the streets, driveways, and alleys near the residence of Captain Richard C. Moffitt. He turned onto Holme Avenue, in the direction of Pennypack Circle.

  When he was safely into the flow of traffic, he leaned over and took the microphone from the glove compartment.

  "Isaac Twenty-three," he said into it, and when they came back at him, he said he needed a location on Two-Eleven, which was the Second District blue-and-white he'd commandeered from Mac McGovern to escort Miss Louise Dutton.

  "I have him out of service at WCBL-TV at Seventeenth and Locust, Inspector," the radio operator finally told him. "Thirty-five minutes ago."

  "Thank you," Wohl said, and put the microphone back inside the glove compartment and slammed the door.

  There would be time, he decided, to see what the medical examiner had turned up about the female doer. There was no question that there would be other questions directed at him by his boss, Chief Inspector Coughlin, and very possibly by Commissioner Czernick or even the mayor. Peter Wohl believed the Boy Scouts were right; it paid to be prepared.

  A battered Ford van pulled to a stop in the parking lot of the medical examiner's office at Civic Center Boulevard and University Avenue. The faded yellow van had a cracked windshield. On the sides were still legible vestiges of a BUDGET RENT-A-CAR logotype. The chrome grille was missing, as was the right headlight and its housing. The passenger-side door had apparently encountered something hard and sharp enough to slice the door skin like a knife. There was a deep, but not penetrating, dent on the body on the same side. The body was rusted through at the bottom of the doors, and above the left-rear fender well.

  The vehicle had forty-two unanswered traffic citations against it, most for illegal parking, but including a half dozen or so for the missing headlight, the cracked windshield, an illegible license plate, and similar misdemeanor violations of the Motor Vehicle Code.

  Two men got out of the van. One of them was young, very large, and bearded. He was wearing greasy blue jeans, and a leather band around his forehead to keep his long, unkempt hair out of his eyes. After he got out of the passenger's side, the driver, a small, smooth-shaven, somewhat weasel-faced individual wearing a battered gray sweatshirt with the legend support your local sheriff printed on it slid over and got out after him. They walked into the building.

  Staff Inspector Peter Wohl and Sergeant Zachary Hobbs of Homicide were standing by a coffee vending machine in the basement, drinking from Styrofoam cups. Wohl shook his head when he saw them.

  "Hello, Inspector," the weasel-faced small man, who was Lieutenant David Pekach of the Narcotics Squad, said.

  "Pekach, does your mother know what you do for a living?" Wohl replied, offering his hand.

  Pekach chuckled. "God, I hope not." He looked at Hobbs. "You're Sergeant Hobbs?"

  "Yes, sir," Hobbs said.

  "You know Officer McFadden?" Pekach asked, and both Wohl and Hobbs shook their heads, no.

  "Charley, this is Staff Inspector Wohl," the weasel-faced man said, "And Sergeant Hobbs. Officer Charley McFadden."

  "How do you do, sir?" Officer McFadden asked, respectfully, to Wohl and Hobbs each in turn.

  "Where is she?" Pekach asked.

  "In there," Wohl said, nodding at double metal doors. "He's not through with her."

  "Don't tell me you have a queasy stomach, Inspector?" Pekach asked, innocently.

  "You bet your ass, I do," Wohl said.

  Pekach walked in. McFadden followed him.

  Unidentified White Female Suspect was on a stainless steel table. She was naked, her legs spread, one arm lying beside her, the other over her head. Body fluids dripped from a corner drain on the table into a stainless steel bucket on the tile floor.

  A bald-headed man wearing a plastic apron over surgical blues stopp
ed what he was doing and looked up curiously and unpleasantly at Pekach and McFadden. What he was doing was removing Unidentified White Female Suspect's heart from the opening he had made in her chest.

  "I'm Lieutenant Pekach, Doctor," Pekach said. "We just want to get a look at her face."

  The medical examiner shrugged, and went on with what he was doing.

  "Jesus," Pekach said. "What did he shoot her with?"

  "I presume," the medical examiner said dryly, not looking up, "that the weapon used was the standard service revolver."

  Pekach snorted.

  "She shot Captain Moffitt the way she was shot up like that?" Pekach asked.

  "Before," the medical examiner replied. "What I think happened is that she shot Moffitt before he shot her.''

  "I don't understand," Pekach said.

  The medical examiner pointed with his scalpel at a small plastic bag. Pekach picked it up.

  It held a misshapen piece of lead, thinner than a pencil and about a quarter of an inch long.

  "Twenty-two," the medical examiner said. "Probably a long rifle. It entered his chest just below the armpit." He took Unidentified White Female Suspect's hand, raised it in the air, and pointed. "From the side, almost from the back. The bullet hit the left ventricle of the aorta. Then he bled to death, internally. The heart just kept pumping, and when he ran out of blood, he died."

  "Jesus Christ!" Pekach said.

  The medical examiner let Unidentified White Female Suspect's arm fall, and then pointed to another plastic envelope.

  "Show these to Peter Wohl," he said. "I think it's what he's looking for. I just took those out of her.''

  The envelope contained three misshapen pieces of lead. Each was larger and thicker than the.22 projectile removed from the body of Captain Moffitt. The ends of all the bullets had expanded, "mushroomed," on striking something hard, so that they actually looked something like mushrooms. The other end of each bullet was covered by a quarter-inch-high copper-colored cup. There were clear rifling marks on the cups; it would not be at all difficult to match these jacketed bullets to the pistol that had fired them.

  The very large young man looked carefully at the face of Unidentified White Female Suspect and changed her status.

  "Schmeltzer, Dorothy Ann," he said. "Twenty-four, five feet five, one-hundred twenty-five pounds. Last known address... somewhere on Vine, just east of Broad. I'd have to check."

  "You're sure?"

  "That's Dorothy Ann," McFadden said. "I thought she was still in jail."

  "What was she in for?"

  "Solicitation for prostitution," McFadden said. "I think the judge put her in to see if they couldn't dry her out."

  "She's got needle marks all over," the medical examiner said, "in places you wouldn't believe. No identification on her? Is that what this is all about?''

  "Lieutenant Natali told me all she had on her was a joint and a.22 pistol," Pekach said. "And the needle marks. He thought we might be able to make her as a junkie. Thank you, Doctor."

  He left the room.

  Wohl and Hobbs were no longer alone. Lieutenant Natali and Lieutenant Sabara of the Highway Patrol had come to the medical examiner's office. Sabara looked askance at the Narcotics Division officers.

  Natali saw it. "I like your sweatshirt, Pekach," he said dryly.

  "Could you identify her?" Hobbs asked.

  "Officer McFadden was able to identify her, Sergeant," Pekach said, formally. "Her name was Schmeltzer, Dorothy Ann Schmeltzer. A known drug addict, who McFadden thinks was only recently released from prison."

  "Any known associates, McFadden?" Hobbs asked.

  "Sir, I can't recall any names. It'd be on her record."

  "If I can borrow him for a while, I'd like to take McFadden with me to the Roundhouse," Hobbs said.

  "Sure," Pekach said.

  "I guess you can call off the rest of your people, then," Hobbs said. "And thank you, Lieutenant."

  "Now that I've got her name, maybe I can find out something," Pekach said. "I'll get on the radio."

  "Appreciate it," Hobbs said. "If you do come up with something, give me or Lieutenant Natali a call."

  "Sure," Pekach said. "Inspector, the medical examiner said to show you these. He said he thought that's what you were waiting for.''

  Wohl took the bag Pekach handed him and held it up to the light. He was not surprised to see that the bullets were jacketed, and from the way they had mushroomed, almost certainly had been hollow pointed.

  "What's that? The projectiles?" Sergeant Hobbs asked.

  Wohl handed the envelope to Sergeant Hobbs. They met each other's eyes, but Hobbs didn't say anything.

  "Don't lose those," Wohl said.

  "What do you think they are, Inspector?" Hobbs asked, in transparent innocence.

  "I'm not a firearms expert," Wohl said. "What I see is four bullets removed from the body of the woman suspected of shooting Captain Moffitt. They're what they call evidence, Sergeant, in the chain of evidence."

  "They're jacketed hollow points," Hobbs said. "Is that what this is all about?"

  "What the hell is the difference?" Pekach said. "Dutch is dead. The Department can't do anything to him now for using prohibited ammunition."

  "And maybe we'll get lucky," Hobbs said, "and get an assistant DA six months out of law school who thinks bullets are bullets are bullets."

  "Yeah, and maybe we won't," Wohl said. "Maybe we'll get some assistant DA six months out of law school who knows the difference, and would like to get his name in the newspapers as the guy who caught the cops using illegal ammunition, again, in yet another example of police brutality."

  "Jesus," Pekach said, disgustedly. "And I know just the prick who would do that." He paused and added. "Two or three pricks, now that I think about it."

  "Get those to Firearms Identification, Hobbs," Wohl said. "Get a match. Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe we will be lucky.''

  "Yes, Sir," Hobbs said.

  "I don't think there is anything else to be done here," Wohl said. "Or am I missing something?" He looked at Sabara as he spoke.

  "I thought I'd escort the hearse to the funeral home," Sabara said. "You know, what the hell. It seems little enough..."

  "I think Dutch would like that," Wohl said.

  "Well, I expect I had better pay my respects to Chief Lowenstein," Wohl said. "I'll probably see you fellows in the Roundhouse."

  "If you don't mind my asking, Inspector," Hobbs said. "Are you going to be in on this?"

  "No," Wohl said. "Not the way you mean. But the eyewitness is that blonde from Channel 9. That could cause problems. The commissioner asked me to make sure it doesn't. I want to explain that to Chief Lowenstein. That's all."

  "Good luck, Inspector," Hobbs said, chuckling. Chief Inspector of Detectives Matt Lowenstein, a heavyset, cigar chewing man in his fifties, had a legendary temper, which was frequently triggered when he suspected someone was treading on sacred Detective Turf.

  "Why do I think I'll need it?" Wohl said, also chuckling, and left.

  There was a Cadillac hearse with a casket in it in the parking lot. The driver was leaning on the fender. Chrome-plated letters outside the frosted glass read MARSHUTZ & SONS.

  Dutch was apparently going to be buried from a funeral home three blocks from his house. As soon as the medical examiner released the body, it would be put in the casket, and in the hearse, and taken there.

  Wohl thought that Sabara showing up here, just so he could lead the hearse to Marshutz & Sons, was a rather touching gesture. It wasn't called for by regulations, and he hadn't thought that Dutch and Sabara had been that close. But probably, he decided, he was wrong. Sabara wasn't really as tough as he acted (and looked), and he probably had been, in his way, fond of Dutch.

  He got in the LTD and got on the radio.

  "Isaac Twenty-Three. Have Two-Eleven contact me on the J-Band."

  Two-Eleven was the Second District car he had sent with Louise Dutton.

&nbs
p; He had to wait a moment before Two-Eleven called him.

  "Two-Eleven to Isaac Twenty-Three."

  "What's your location, Two-Eleven?"

  "We just dropped the lady at Six Stockton Place."

  Where the hell is that? The only Stockton Place I can think of is a slum down by the river.

  "Where?"